Choose Life

In my last post, I mentioned some of the blessings of obedience that we have as Christians. While all the Old Testament promises don’t transfer directly to us, we can learn an important lesson from Moses’ last words to Israel: “I invoke as a witness against you _⌊today_⌋ the heaven and the earth: life and death I have set _⌊before you_⌋, blessing and curse. So choose life, so that you may live, you and your offspring, by loving Yahweh your God by listening to his voice and by clinging to him, for he is your life and the length of your days.” Break this out: “Choose life so that you may live… by loving God and listening to His voice… for He is your life.”

Lest you think this too is uniquely an Old Testament truth, hear the words of Jesus, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Whereas Moses may have brought up images of literal, physical death (which the Israelites suffered repeatedly), the Apostle Paul carried the message into the New Testament by using death as a symbolic state of being – symbolic, yet just as dire in its consequences. He says time and again that all of us were dead in trespasses and sins before we were made alive in Christ. He also uses the metaphor to encourage Christians to put to death the things of the world that remain part of our nature after we have been redeemed. Like Moses, the Apostle sets before us life and death.

Here is a blessing of obedience I failed to mention in my last post: life. I don’t mean brain waving, heart beating warm flesh type of life. The Greek language of the New Testament has several words that can be translated life. The one most often used for life in Christ, indeed, the one Jesus used in John 17:3 is the word zoe (ζωή). In our English versions, this word is often preceded by the word “eternal” to indicate its unique characteristics. While the eternal nature of zoe is part of its meaning, we miss an important aspect of zoe-life if that’s as far as we take it. It has immediate benefits for those who choose it.

When Paul was explaining to the Romans why they should abandon their former lives of sin, despite the fact that grace covered those sins, he used the picture of baptism to make his point. “Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we may live a new way of life.” The life he referred to was zoe, and he qualified it with the word “new.” Greek has two words for new; one refers to time – new as in not old. The other one, the one Paul used here, speaks of new as a different quality. The life we have after being rescued from death (after baptism into Christ) is a different kind of life. Zoe life.

There are several aspects to this new life we have. One I have so often repeated that my regular readers may be tired of hearing it, but it is so essential I must say it again. It’s found in Jesus’ statement: “This is life (zoe): that they may know You.” Knowing God is essential to new life. When we were dead, we couldn’t know God. Paul made this clear when chastising the Corinthians for being too unspiritual (Soulish is the word he used.). He told them the things of God are spiritually discerned, and the human mind – the dead mind, the soulish mind – is unable to grasp them. So, one indispensable blessing of life in Christ is the ability to hear and know the truth – the spiritual truth contained in Scripture as well as the whispered truth in our inner being (our spirit).

The benefits of this blessing cannot be overstated. Without the ability to hear from God we are left saddled with the results of our own devices. Paul details these consequences for the Corinthian believers in the next chapter. The Apostle tells them that soulish works – things done in the flesh (aka not Spirit led) – would not earn any eternal reward. In fact, he uses the imagery of the fires of judgment which everyone must go through, even Christians, to picture soulish works being burned up while works done in the Spirit are purified like gold, silver, and precious stones.

Thankfully, Paul does not say that believers who work in unspiritual ways will perish. He says that their misguided efforts will be burned up, but that they will enter eternity smelling of smoke. I would much rather soar into eternity on the wings of a Dove than to scrape by with singed tail feathers. Notice also that the unspiritual actions Paul referred to were not wicked; the Corinthians behavior may even have seemed righteous. They were arguing over relative status of the preachers they knew. It almost sounds like typical church disagreements today: what color carpet in the auditorium, what type of music in the services, stained glass or plain windows, are the people in the church down the road truly our brothers? I like the way J.B. Phillips words Paul’s rebuke: “For you are still unspiritual… you are living just like men of the world.”

Paul said elsewhere that believers are all baptized into one Spirit. If we are all listening to that one Spirit, there can be no dissention. Agreement to disagree maybe, but that is done in a loving way without rancor. And the other blessings of zoe-life come into play. Paul listed some for the Ephesians: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self control. The fruit of the Spirit is a benefit of life in the Spirit –zoe-life. The next time you are about to make a decision, whether it is in the church or in the grocery store, pause to consider its backdrop. Does it flow from the Spirit, or does it come from things of this world; are the results likely to be gold, silver, and precious stones or wood, hay, and stubble? Remember: things of this world lead to death; things of the Spirit are life – zoe-life.